Vines & Hops offering a gigantic, epic brew for $200

Jeff McKay, co-owner of Vines & Hops Café in Riverhead, with the store’s remaining bottle of the 2012 Vertical Epic brew, currently on sale for $200. (Credit: Barbaraellen Koch)

Local craft beer lovers now have an opportunity to get their hands on the final part of an epic brewing journey.

The Stone Brewing Company in Escondido, Calif., embarked on a 12-year brewing process in 2001 for a series of beers called “Vertical Epic,” one of which is now offered at Vines & Hops Café in Riverhead.

Over the years, the brewery has created craft brews on the date that coincides with an identical month, day, and year. For example, brewing for its Stone 11.11.11 Vertical Epic Ale took place on Nov. 11, 2011 (or 11/11/11). For all of you Spinal Tap fans, that’s also “Nigel Tufnel Day”!

Only a small number of novelty-sized bottles were released. Those bottles, whose tops are held under lock and key, offer one-and-half gallons of the tall-tale ale.

Jeff McKay, co-owner of Vines & Hops Café, said he ordered two bottles of the 2012 vintage. One sold the very same day it arrived, he said.

Interested buyers that want to be a part of the journey’s grand end should be ready to pay up — the bottle carries a $200 price tag.

“If I sell it, I sell it,” McKay said. ”If not, the longer it is in the bottle the better because it will continue to ferment.”